Pigtails
by The-7th-Star
Summary: He hears shouts from the house come every night, but she comes to playgroup fine in the morning. Until the four year boy old hears the door slam. And that is when his life changes. (SoMa, One shot.)


**Hi. Sorry about the Hiatus. I have a 500 word spanish final coming up, so I'm busy studying. This is just something I put together in my free time.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

The little boy hears the screaming that went on in the house next door every day. He hears things get thrown and crash, and sometimes the sound of a little girl crying out manages to push and shove its way past the louder noises, so it can just be heard if you're listening.

And then it gets silent.

But she comes to pre-school every day, and there are no cuts or scratches on her face or arms. He thinks it's a mystery, though he isn't interested enough to pursue it.

After all, no one gets hurt. She comes to school every day, her green eyes blinking in his direction often, her pigtails swinging when she plays jump rope by herself in the corner.

He has nothing to do, so he listens when his fingers hurt too much to practice on his little piano, or when it's his brother's turn in the music room. They're both prodigies, and he can play Heart and Soul at the tender age of four and a half.

But when he isn't playing he listens.

He is listening to the screams, and he hears the little whimper of the girl in his play group, and he hears something break. There is nothing out of the ordinary.

And then he hears the door slam.

He runs outside to see the change in pace, and the little girl's whimpers are now wails and screams. Her pigtails are in a frenzy as she runs after her mommy, the most important person in her life.

At least, his mommy is the most important to him.

He sees a car door shut, hears it slam, and the little girl's cries are louder. Her mommy rolls down the window and says something calmly.

And then she rolls it back up and leaves.

The crying is louder now, and he can't bare to hear it. He plugs his ears and hides under his pillow, but even though the sound is blocked out it echoes in his mind.

He gets up and looks back out the window.

She is sitting on the ground, her knee bloody, and she is still.

He can't fall asleep that night.

* * *

The next morning, he runs outside shouting at his mommy to follow, she lost her keys; he wants to go to his play-group. He doesn't tell her why, but he knows the little girl will be there. She always is, playing with the jump rope in the corner.

He stops short.

There she is, sitting at the doorstep of her house, her knee still untended to and bleeding, her hair limp and loose. He walks up to her and touches her shoulder warily, as his mommy is still in the house.

She looks up at him with big sad eyes.

"Are you coming to playgroup today?"

They are the first words he ever says to her, and they are timid and cautious. She shakes her head.

"I can't go to playgroup. My pigtails are undone, and mommy said she'd do them when she got home."

He doesn't want her to be late for playgroup. He doesn't know why her parents aren't taking her. Maybe they lost their keys too, and she can come with them.

"I'll do your pigtails."

He doesn't know why he offered, but she hands him the ribbons meekly, and he does the best he can. He's careful not to pull her hair too hard. He also takes a Band-Aid from his pocket and sticks it on her knee.

"Done."

He stands back to look at his handiwork. One is sticking out, and one is droopy, but he thinks he did a pretty good job.

He takes her hand and drags her to his mommy, asking if she can take her to pre-school with them. After a quick word with the little girl's daddy, she agrees.

He sings silly songs the whole way there.

She sings along to some of them, but often she looks out the back window.

He asks her why.

"I'm waiting for my mommy to pass us. I want to wave to her."

This makes _his_ mommy cry a little, but he doesn't know why. Instead he sings another silly song, one about monsters.

She giggles.

He takes her hand and almost drags her into the classroom. His mommy tells the teacher a few words, and then she is crying too. He decides they'll go play with blocks.

His best friend is there. He's loud and his hair is a weird color, but he knows he can count on him to understand that they were going to play with the little girl that day.

She builds blocks with them and one other kid he doesn't know the name of, asks the girl why her hair isn't the same on the right and the left. The teacher comes up and says a big word that means the same thing before offering to fix her pigtails.

She pushes the teacher away and continues building with him.

But at the end of the day, when they line up, he asks her to come home with him. She shakes her head.

"I'm waiting for my mommy. She said she'd pick me up."

When his mommy comes, she whispers something to her that he can't hear. She nods and follows him meekly to their car.

He sings silly songs the whole way home.

* * *

The next day she's sitting there again, on the steps. Her hair is undone again, and she looks tired. He tells her that.

"I was waiting for my mommy to come and tuck me in. She does that every night."

She rubs her eyes and yawns, brushing her loose hair out of her face.

"Are you coming to playgroup today?"

She tugs at her hair as an answer, showing him the stretchies that she has palmed in her hand. These have little beads on them, pink and blue.

He takes them from her and makes another attempt at a proper hairstyle. This time it gets tangled in the beads, but she doesn't seem to mind.

Playgroup is exactly the same, but the weird kid who likes things to be the same on both sides is playing with two sisters. One likes dress up, the other likes giraffes.

They play with balls that day, and she rolls around a big green one.

He sings a little song about trucks on the way home.

And then it's night and he can't sleep. He decides to look out the window and count the stars.

He gets up to thirteen before he notices a problem.

The light in the house next door is on.

He knocks on his window loudly, hoping that the sound will carry through to her. It soon enough works and she shows up from behind the closed curtains in a big T-shirt, a too-big brush in her hand as she tries to take the tangles out of her hair that he had put in earlier.

Maybe she should bring the brush the next day.

He waves at her and makes a silly face, trying to get her to laugh. It works.

She waves back and smiles.

"Go to sleep."

He pantomimes it as he shouts it to her, knowing that she can't hear him. She imitates him and waves.

She is trying to say goodnight.

He waves back and watches as she closes the curtains and the lights go off.

He goes to sleep, and this time it's easy. He dreams about big eyes girls and knotty pigtails.

* * *

It's Saturday that week and he is having his best friend over, the loud one with the weird hair. He's so exited he puts on his favorite shirt all by himself.

Before realizing it's backwards.

He manages to put on his pants inside out and his shoes on the wrong feet before his mommy helps him get dressed in the special way she does and everything comes out just right.

He wonders who gets her dressed every day.

His friend comes and he's loud and fun. They play with plastic swords, and pretend they are knights.

It's fun for a whole hour, and then they decide to go outside and play there. They go out and his best friend points to the little girl next door, who goes to playgroup with them, and is sitting on the steps, staring at the street.

"What is she looking for?"

They walk up to her and ask her, his best friend louder, but he cares more. He notices her shoes are on the wrong feet and her hair is down again.

Flowery scrunchies are clenched in her tiny hands.

"I'm waiting for my mommy. She said she'd play with me today."

He takes the scrunchies from her and puts her hair up, then decides to invite her to play knights with them. She can be the princess.

She frowns.

"I want to be a dragon."

His best friend laughs at her, and she growls.

"I could be a better dragon than you could."

Before he knows it, he is the only knight and he has to defeat _two_ dragons.

He's never had so much fun.

She gains his best friend's grudging respect, enough so that he invites her to have cookies with them. When his mommy sees the girl she looks funny. Sort of sad and happy at the same time.

"Sweetie, let me fix your shoes."

She only does it when _he_ helps her, and she refuses altogether to fix her dress.

They sing a song about dragons and she roars louder than he does. But he can sing the best. And then she realizes it is night and that she doesn't want to keep her mommy waiting. She must be home by now.

But that night she says goodnight to _him_ and he is the last person she sees before she goes to sleep.

* * *

He wakes up and gets his clothes on by himself, making sure his shoes and shirt is on right. He runs outside and sees her sitting on the steps, looking at the street.

He helps her get her shoes on the right feet and does her pigtails with sparkly hairclips.

She barely argues when his mommy takes her to their car. Instead, she shows them a note.

"It says that my mommy said I should go with you. But only until she comes back."

He thinks that her mommy was away an awful long time. But he doesn't say anything.

There is something special that day. They watch a video that day in pre-school. There is a song that she sings along with when it comes on, even though it makes the teacher cry.

"My mommy comes back, she always comes back, she always comes back to get me."

In the car that day, she is still singing the song. It makes his mommy cry too, and he thinks he knows why, but he isn't going to tell her.

That would be mean.

Even though he says nothing, she's crying while she sings the song, her messy pigtails shaking with every accompanying hiccup. He pats her head, trying to cheer her up.

But he wants to cry too.

He walks her to her house and he is holding her hand, staring at the big door. When it opens he sees it's dirty, and there is dust everywhere. She walks in and waves before heading up the stairs.

Her lonely singing echoes down the hall, and he can still hear it.

"My mommy comes back, she always comes back. She never will forget me."

When he waves at her that night he can still hear her singing.

* * *

She looks particularly watchful that day, and he runs out to sit with her.

He started doing that four weeks ago, every day.

It's been three months and her mommy is still not home. His mommy doesn't cry as much anymore, but his daddy seems to pace more often. His older brother doesn't tease him as much anymore, though he still teases him a lot.

Her eyes are red that day.

"I'm waiting for my mommy."

She says it, already crying before she finishes the sentence.

"Today is my birthday, and she said she'd bake me a cake."

He pulls her towards his house, and she can barely walk by the time they make it up the three steps leading to it. She keeps crying about how its her birthday, and her mommy said, and his mommy picks her up and lays her on the couch, and he takes the hairbrush and ponytails with birthday candles on them from her hand.

He starts brushing her hair and she cries harder.

His mommy takes out a cake from the fridge, all pink and swirly with big red roses and green leaves. She puts it on the table and takes out the phone.

She calls a bunch of people and soon the house is filling up.

There is his best friend and a shy girl with a ponytail, waling in with the kid who likes things the same on both sides.

There are the two sisters with the love giraffes and the puffy pink dress up clothes.

They are all holding boxes with ribbons on them and he runs to his room to get the one that he made and wrapped by himself.

There is a dragon toy from his best friend.

There are crayons from the shy girl.

There is a pad of rainbow paper from the kid who liked things the same on each side.

There is a giraffe toy from one sister.

There is a sparkly tiara from the other.

And he gives her, very proudly, a box full of ponytails that he decorated himself, with his mommy's help. And she stops crying a little and everyone eats cake.

She puts on the sparkly tiara and his ponytails and clips.

And then she takes a nap, while everyone is still eating. And he hears her whimper in her sleep and nice-s her back while she is asleep.

Because he knows what she is dreaming about, she just said it.

"Mommy."

* * *

He sits with her every day now, waiting for her mommy to come home, and he never catches her looking at the street in the morning.

She always looks at his house.

He makes her pigtails, and they look the same on both sides half of the time, and the rest of the time they are only a little lopsided.

They always play together, trains, balls, dragons, blocks, and more that he can't even name. She has gained the habit of reading to him at school, and he makes sure no one picks on her.

They sing silly songs together, and they wave to each other at night.

When girls talk about cooties, she tells them that cooties aren't real, and that she plays with boys every day. They don't play with her anymore, at least for now.

When boys say that girls are wimpy and he's a wimp for playing with one, he brings her over. She beats them in any game they care to play, and they don't talk to him anymore, at least fir now.

But his best friend with the weird hair and the kid who likes things the same on both sides doesn't call her wimpy.

And the sister who likes dress up and the one who likes giraffes doesn't talk about cooties.

And the shy girl with the ponytail doesn't say much at all, but she plays with them anyways, when they all play together.

And every night he waves to her from his window before they go to bed.

But she's always waiting for her mommy to come home, whenever she isn't playing with him.

She looks out the window of the car.

She stares down the street in front of her house.

She walks down the aisles, searching, when his mommy takes her grocery shopping with them.

"I'm waiting for my mommy. She said she'd come back."

* * *

They are sitting together at the swings in the park, and he is showing her how to pump. He had been pushing her before, but she now wants to do it by herself.

Suddenly she stops trying and slips off the swing, her pigtails in a twist. She's wearing the scrunchies he made, and he notices this with a sense of pride.

She sits down on the ground like a pretzel, the way they do in school when the teacher wants to say something important. He sits down next to her, pretzel style too.

She squints her eyes, they way she does when _she_ is trying to say something important. She looks at him.

"My daddy is trying to get a new mommy."

She says this with a serious face but he can't understand. How do you replace a person? Mommies aren't bought, there's only one of them.

She is sniffling and trying not to cry to prove she's tough. But he'd cry if his daddy tried to get a new mommy, he knows he would.

"Why is he doing that? My mommy is coming back. She told me."

He stands up and gives her a hug. They're only five, and it has no romantic gesture. It's what the shy girl with the ponytail and the sisters who like giraffes and dress up do when she's sad, so he does it now.

She hugs him back, and he thinks he hears his mommy laugh, but he doesn't know why.

She's sad, his friend is sad, and this is serious.

"I don't want a new mommy. Mine is coming back. She told me so."

* * *

It's been a five months now, since her mommy left, and school is out. She is sitting on the steps and waiting for her mommy when he comes out. She had told him yesterday that her mommy said they'd go swimming together.

Now she's sitting in a little stripy two piece, her hair down and plain ponytails ready.

He doesn't even have to ask for them, she just hands them over.

He is wearing swimming trunks and a T-shirt, because _his_ mommy said that he could go to the beach that day. He asks if she wants to come.

"OK, but I want to leave a note for mommy before I leave."

She does, and he helps her with the picture part, while she writes the few words she knows. They decide it gets the message across, and they leave it by the front door.

There is a crash, and even though he had heard it in the beginning, it makes him sad.

"That's my daddy. He's still trying to get a new mommy, but he can't find one yet."

He decides to make her ponytails extra perfect today, because he can tell she's sad.

"There's someone new every night. He doesn't come to tuck me in anymore."

He gives her another hug and she squeezes him back.

"I miss my mommy."

His mommy comes over and tells her that she can come to the beach with them. There will be other kids there.

"OK."

He's glad that she takes _his_ hand when they head to the car and asks _him_ to choose the silly song.

He chooses one about a starfish. They sing it together.

He runs out of the car and drags her along, her telling him to slow down, or she'll lose a flip-flop.

He doesn't know what that is, but it can't be _that_ important.

His best friend is there too, with the shy girl with the ponytail. He plays in the ocean and splashes her when she tries to collect seashells.

She declares war, in her most-est grownup voice.

No one wins; everyone is too wet to call a clear victory.

They walk back to his mommy, dripping wet, and then they eat watermelon together, the fruit as wet as them and as red as their cheeks.

She comes home with them and he sings a song about sharks, and she laughs at the part about point teeth.

He knows why, they both do. It's not mean; it's like when he pulls her pigtails.

Or calls her twig.

But then they get home and she starts crying because her mommy didn't come to swim with her.

"I'm going to take a bath."

"Me too."

They don't say goodnight, because they do that later, through the window.

He watches her walk up to the house that used to be loud and is now quiet. He walks up to his own house and his mommy runs the bath for him.

He wonders who does it for her.

Later that night he gives her an extra big wave and a silly face.

She pushes a picture up to the glass and he can see that it is of them, playing at the beach.

And then they wave goodnight.

* * *

It's been five years now since her mommy left, and she doesn't always wear pigtails, though it is still her favorite hairstyle. Every so often, she wears it in braids, a twist, a ponytail, or a bun if it's hot.

He's become quite the expert at hairstyles.

Sometimes, if they are running late, he does her hair on the school bus.

They sit together everyday.

Silly songs have turned into singing to the radio, or whatever the bus driver chose to play.

Building blocks and train sets have turned into passing notes and basketball now that they actually have classes.

They study together for tests and sit together at lunch,

Their friends have gained names, and not just references to what they like.

He's a cool kid, with his looks and indifferent attitude, unless you get to know him better.

She's a nerd, with her pigtails and trusting

That day in vocabulary they learn some new words. Two stick out to him.

Loyal.

Trusting.

He raises his hand to the teacher, and the class gets silent. He's the cool guy.

He never raises his hand.

Never.

That's the nerd's job, the one he passes notes to every day.

"Is being trusting and loyal a good thing?"

Because he isn't so sure that it is.

She is too trusting and loyal, except to adult males. Because when they get off the bus that day, just like they always do, she goes and sits on the bench in her front yard.

It's a new addition, she asked her father for it.

It's been five years, five years! He knows what she's waiting for, but he asks anyways, when he sits down next to her.

"I'm waiting for my mommy."

And as uncool as it is to say mommy, and to sit with the nerd, she is his best friend so he does it anyways.

And that night they call each other on the phone while they look at each other from the window. She tries on clothes and he tells her if they're nerdy or cute.

And then she says goodnight.

* * *

He's still thinking about the loyalty thing, and it's been a week. That day the teacher gives them paper and pencils, and the assignment, "draw your family".

He gets to work drawing his, because he can draw, so he might as well.

There's his Daddy.

There's his Mommy.

There's his annoying older brother, who always teases him.

He finds himself drawing a girl his age next to him, and when he adds pigtails he knows who it is.

And promptly decides to peek at her picture. And on her paper, he's surprised what he sees.

There's _his_ Daddy.

There's _his_ Mommy.

There's his best friend and the shy girl with the ponytail.

There's the kid who likes things the same on both sides.

There are the two sisters who like giraffes and makeup.

And right in the middle, next to her in her pigtailed glory is _him._

And he never felt quite as happy as he did at that moment.

* * *

**It's a little sad but I really like it. It's a whole new style. R and R.**

**-Star**


End file.
